Microsoft raises Azure availability, lowers prices

Microsoft has now promised to deliver a service-level agreement (SLA) of 99.99 percent availability, equivalent to a downtime of just 53 minutes per year.

This will come as a welcome increase from the 99.95 percent previously delivered, particularly given the number of Azure outages that have occurred in recent weeks.

Alongside this, the firm has introduced a new low cost performance level called S0, enabling more customers to benefit from features in the Standard Tier. The monthly cost of S0 will be $15 and will be available from November, when the new price scheme launches.